GREENVILLE, S.C. —
At every turn, Penn men’s basketball fought.
On Thursday, the Quakers’ season came to a close in Greenville, S.C. with a 105-70 loss to Illinois in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Though the matchup lacked the euphoria of the Red and Blue’s Ivy League championship win earlier in the week, it delivered on another hallmark that has defined coach Fran McCaffery’s inaugural group: competing for every possible advantage.
Though the final score paints the picture of a blowout, Penn stuck around into the second half against the Illini thanks to a few key preparation angles. First and foremost: their defense.
McCaffery and others have spoken at length this season about the way stringing together stops galvanizing the Quakers, and that remained true against the nation’s second-most efficient offense.
Penn came out with a clear plan to slow down Illini guard Keaton Wagler, a second team All-American and projected NBA lottery pick. Though Wagler has succeeded in dismantling opposing defenses all season long, Penn’s physical attention — which often included help from 6-foot-9 junior forward Augustus Gerhart to crowd the 6-foot-6 Wagler — seemed to have an impact. Wagler shot just 3-of-9 from the field in the first half, while the Illini shot under 40% as a team.
The Quakers also found some success of their own offensively thanks to some key schematic adjustments from McCaffery.
Junior forward TJ Power, who scored 44 points in Penn’s Ivy title win over Yale, was “not himself” according to McCaffery due to an illness contracted earlier in the week. Power was also the subject of relentless pressure from stout Illinois guard Kylan Boswell, and though he got a few open looks, Power was clearly below 100%.
“That is one tough kid there,” McCaffery said of Power. “There was no question he was going to show up and fight for us.”
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With his Ivy tournament MVP ailing and senior guard/forward Ethan Roberts still out with a concussion, McCaffery turned to senior guard/forward Michael Zanoni.
Zanoni has starred in big games throughout his Quaker career — he had 27 points against Penn State last season and 30 at Providence on Nov. 11 — and on Thursday, he used a stretch of hot mid-range shooting to keep Penn’s offense afloat. Many of the sets were the same as they have been all season, with Zanoni curling tightly off pindown screens and rising up off-balance, but the diet was noticeably greater amid Penn’s short-handed circumstances.
Not all of McCaffery’s preparation was successful. The Illini notably mauled Penn on the offensive glass, racking up 29 second-chance points on a staggering 20 offensive rebounds.
Illinois’s size is the primary issue— it deploys a lineup with multiple seven-footers and just one player under 6-foot-6. But their approach also posed problems — coach Brad Underwood’s group used a glass-crashing strategy known as “tagging up,” in which each offensive player engages a defender’s body before attempting to locate the ball as it comes off the glass. This turns every possession into a series of one-on-one battles, and when you consider Illinois’s stature, you can see why they won many of them.
Several of the wrinkles that kept Penn competitive early also wore down as the game continued. Wagler found his stroke, connecting on four of five shots after halftime, while the rest of Illinois’s shooters (their lineup features eight players that make 30% or better from three) more consistently punished Penn’s aggressive convergence at the rim. The open corner threes that the Illini missed in the first half were on-target in the second, and the lopsided ending resulted.
But at the close of what can only be considered an extremely successful first season for McCaffery, the results are not the only pertinent metric.
At his closing press conference, McCaffery fielded many reflective questions and posited similar answers, emphasizing his degree of pride in the team’s commitment and camaraderie.
“We talk about the business of this — wins and losses, points and rebounds,” McCaffery said. “But this should be the best four years of [the players’] lives, and I never lose sight of the fact that I want them to have fun.”
McCaffery recalled his days growing up in the Palestra, spectating Big 5 hoops and “dreaming” of one day donning a jersey himself. He spoke of his former teammates who made the trip to Ithaca last weekend and of the former players’ weddings he’ll attend this summer. A coach renowned for his schematic implementation spent the final public moments of his championship season focusing on the opposite, remarking that he’s never had more fun coaching a team than he did this year.
It seemed a fitting conclusion for a team that, despite the season-ending result, relished their final moments on the court. As the Penn band played “The Red and Blue” and the Quakers made their way to a section of fans at Bon Secours Wellness Arena, many did so with satisfied expressions on their faces. For most, there will be much more college basketball to come, and perhaps another trip to the sport’s biggest stage. But this group came together only once, and they have an Ivy League championship to show for it. That alone is worth Hurrahing over.
WALKER CARNATHAN is a College senior and former DP Sports editor from Harrisburg studying English and cinema and media studies. All comments should be directed to dpsports@thedp.com.
